Amor vincit omnia … even bureaucracy
When a Des Moines Iowa Wendy’s manager married one of the workers, it was the beginning of a six year battle to create a family separated by bureaucratic nitpicking, stupidity and what one lawyer calls plain meanness.
Linda and Aaron Ramirez, and their three children are finally back together, living and working in Des Moines. Mike Kilen, who covers the amazing story of two Wendy’s workers beating the odds and overcoming bureaucratic obstacles in the Des Moines Register nicely summed the whole problem with international marriages like this:
Des Moines Register photo by Christopher Gannon.
MexFiles endorses the candidate for change…
The Presidential election has come down to a cranky old ex-military guy (with ties to the Bush inner circle), the party establishment backed woman and the candidate for change who has to deal with the fallout from his long-time affiliation with his church.
Paraguay’s Presidential elections are 20 April, and former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo stands a fair chance of adding to the list of leftist leaders elected in Latin America ever since George W. trashed the reputation of democratic capitalism:
Now that much of Latin America has shifted to the left, Paraguay remains a key Washington ally. The country’s political landscape continues to be dominated by the Colorado Party, which has been in power for 61 years, the longest continuous rule of any political party in the world. This enormous political machine, much of it built and consolidated during the 35-year military dictatorship (1954–89) of General Alfredo Stroessner, still permeates every inch of Paraguayan society. Yet as the panorama of candidates for the April presidential election makes clear, a new right-wing faction is emerging within the party, pledging to cut the umbilical cord with the past.
The two main contenders for the Colorado Party’s nomination best represent this new Paraguayan right: Blanca Ovelar, a former minister of education, and Luis Castiglioni, who renounced his post as vice president in October in order to run.
…
Ovelar attacked corruption, promising “systematic, rigorous, and professional” fiscal control. But she also used new populist rhetoric. “My fight and my government have and will have a clear objective, a well-identified enemy: poverty,” she declared on her blog. (More than half of the Paraguayan population lives under the poverty line.)
Castiglioni, on the other hand, is a close Washington ally and promoter of neoliberal policies. Washington has cultivated close ties with him, especially on trade. On a trip to the United States in 2005, Castiglioni was photographed in chummy meetings with Roger Noriega, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the director of the FBI.
…In contrast to the other candidates, Fernando Lugo, the bearded former bishop running for president, represents a link to the new left in Latin America. Yet his base comprises a wide coalition of opposition forces whose interests probably don’t coincide past a rejection of Colorado rule.
When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet…
When I first wrote this on Sunday, for posting on Thursday afternoon, I depended on “mainstream media” coverage, which made me think this was just a difference of opinion over style. As of Wednesday night (19 March) it was being reported as such in the only U.S. coverage I’ve seen… from Idolator. I still don’t understand what’s going on, but, after looking at alternative sources — anti-emo websites, sports papers and the gay press, this appears to be a more serious incident than I realized. As with all things Mexican, the truth is never pure and seldom simple. Anyone with better information is welcome to comment. I’ll try to revise this before it posts on Thursday, but between my moving, and trying to make sense of what’s going on, this may be posted unfinished. I’ll just keep working on it, and let it automatically post on Thursday…
Los Emos tangled with los Punketos last week… and after punches were thrown, los Granaderos were called out to keep the two warring parties … joined by los Metalicos and los Goths … apart (at la Angel). Los Krishnas appeared on the scene to serenade all factions.
WTF???? I have enough trouble telling one faction from another within the PRD to try fathoming the nuances of Mexico City’s “tribus urban” … youth groups (“gang” is probably too loaded a word).
Los punketos, as their name suggests, take their cues from the punk rock movement. I thought Punk died along with Sid Vicious, but in Mexico older styles sometimes last well beyond their expiration date. Los Krishnas I can’t figure out… maybe second generation Dead Heads?
The rumble with los emos –short for “emotional” (their style seems more that of los Goths —who despite their attempts to look like Aztec vampires were kinda sweet, harmless folks). An e-mail from Queretero describes them as “the kids who dress in Abercrombie and Fitch knockoffs and wear a lot of hair gel.” In other words, about half of all Mexican teenagers. The “Urban Dictionary” is a bit snarkier, defining “emo” as a:
Genre of softcore punk music that integrates unenthusiastic melodramatic 17 year olds who dont smile, high pitched overwrought lyrics and inaudible guitar rifts with tight wool sweaters, tighter jeans, itchy scarfs (even in the summer), ripped chucks with favorite bands signature, black square rimmed glasses, and ebony greasy unwashed hair that is required to cover at least 3/5 ths of the face at an angle.
The problem, according to one punketo, is that the”emos” are guilty of “cultural theft” from the punketos. , El Universal‘s report suggested that’s all there was to the fracas — kids staking out not so much a “turf” on the landscape as a style and sensibility.
There are some key differences: going by dueling youtube videos, the emos wear their hair combed down over their foreheads, los punketos wear it sticking up. Oh, and los emos are gay friendly, or — to use a word that was a cliche five minutes after it was coined — “metrosexual”.
This is where the thing goes from being a semi-humorous fight over style to something with a sinister substance.
Sergay Scouting News says the attack was a well-organized “hunt” for emos … and gays. Scouting News also reports that los punketos were joined by a porro (basically a futbol fan club, but sometimes a gang of “rowdies-for-hire”, as with English football fan clubs) representing the UNAM Pumas , and possibly Mexican skinheads.
The fight ranged from Metro Insurgentes to la Angel, which is the de facto “gay ghetto”. It’s not unusual to see young kids from the suburbs or the campo just hanging … well… “out.”
In Queretero, there was a well-organized (via email and text-messaging) attack on los emos at the Plaza des Armes on 7 March. Some comments to an even-handed report on the Mexican blog, “Un trabajo sucio” (dealing mostly with pop culture and music) justify the anti-emo attacks on the grounds that the emos are “maricones”. Of course, comments on blogs do not always reflect general opinion, or even reflect the beliefs of the blogger.
On the other hand, Diario de Querataro describes the attackers as “Fresas” (literally “strawberries,” but figuratively “upper class twits”) — which suggests some kind of “class stuggle”. I don’t know enough about Mexican youth culture to make a guess one way or the other, but have noticed that the anti-emo spokeskids seem to speak and dress more like “juniors” than the “naco” emos. (A humorous take on naco and fresa fashion sensibilities — and language — is here).
Televisa, local newspapers and Sergay have different estimates, ranging from a few hundred to a thousand youths involved. There were also rumbles in Durango and Cuidad Guzman (Jalisco) on 15 March (the day of the Mexico City attack) and at least one anti-emo organizer in Sinoloa who puts out a “hotmail” address for more those interested in joining the anti-emos.
I also found a reference to an attack on emos at a blog called “Moviemento Anti Emosexual Inc.” to an emo-punketo confrontation at an Iron Maiden concert in Monterrey. Noticias de Oaxaca reports rumors of an planned anti-emo action for this coming Saturday (22 March)
From what I can tell, Moviemento Anti Emosexual, Inc.” is the main propaganda organ for the anti-emo crowd (this is a “high tech lynching” — or, rather lynch-mob. This talking head doesn’t shy away from using the term:
That website — laced as it is with obscenity and slang far beyond my ability to translate (HELP!) — suggests the anti-emos are motivated as much by more than homophobia:
[My first attempts at translating suggest the anti-emos justify their attacks on the grounds that the emos are not politically motivated — do not protest the rise in DF bus fares, or the Colombian rocket attack on Ecuador, which killed several Mexican students… and that the emos are “gay”. Suggestions given by the site range from the merely cruel — “throw gum in their hair” and “send spam to their blogs and “myspace” pages — to the violent.]
How Kristoff, the Russian born Polish punk rock DJ on Mexican TV fits into this, I don’t know. On the one hand, he attacks the emos for being “gay” and on the other, the punks for being anti-free expression. In the first video, he makes light of the “gay” stereotype, but in the second, he condemns the attacks in no uncertain terms:
Whether the anti-emos are part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” I can’t say. But there are politicians on the right who seem to be in sympathy with the anti-emos. PAN politician Gerardo Hernández Gutiérrez, the Alcade (Mayor) of Celeya, is calling for the emos to be “relocated” from his city’s downtown… because they might give the city a bad image.
By contrast, in the PRD-run Federal District, jefe de Gobierno Marcelo Ebrard, ordered the police to protect the emos. Police commissioner (Secretary of Public Security) Joel Ortega was quoted as saying this was a civil rights matter.
Class and gender-roles seem to figure more in this than hair or musical style. Beyond that, I’ll need more information.
Smack Down!
From Latin Americanist:
… Super Mojado introduced himself yesterday as a hero for Southern California’s immigrant community. A local wrestling promoter said that Super Mojado will star in a charity bout this weekend with proceeds going to illegal immigrants who were detained in a recent raid.
I take it Super Mojado will be a tecnico. Will the rudo be “la Migra” or “Lou Dobbs”? Now that would be TV worth watching!
There’s a long tradition in luche libre of political and social activism. Previously, I’ve written on Father Sergio Gutierrez Benitez (aka Fray Tormenta) , and the transvestite gay-rights luchadores, Mi Flores and Po lvo de Estrlla.
Uh… thanks for nothin’
Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix, the oldest of the seven Arellano Félix brothers, whose extradition to the United States was such a big freakin’ deal in September 2006 has done his time, and was released in El Paso earlierthis month (5 March). He crossed over into Ciudad Juarez and… who knows what he’s up to?
Extraditing these gangsters to the U.S. was supposed to be the whole point of the “War on Drug” (dealers)… but apparently, the U.S. just wants to claim they’ve held them for a time. And, the violence spawned by breaking up the narco-gangs (and extraditing people like Francisco Rafael) is what is making border cities (like Juarez) seem even more unsavory than normal.
Scott Hensen writes in “Grits for Breakfast“:
After a guilty plea earned him a 6-year federal sentence just last October, a top leader from the notorious “Tijuana Cartel” was cut loose last week, crossing back into Mexico from El Paso after spending less than six months in a federal prison in Texas. (Don’t worry, though, we’ve replaced him with this guy, a lower-level lieutenant working for one of his brothers – you wouldn’t want an empty prison bed!)
Maybe somebody with a PACER account and knowledge of federal sentencing guidelines can take a look at this case and tell me how this guy got out so soon. I really don’t understand it, since there’s no parole in the federal system.
The Tijuana Cartel for years dominated drug trafficking into Southern California, but decades-long focus from law enforcement combined with new, powerful and bloodthirsty competitors have weakened the family-run enterprise.
The only thing that makes sense (both logical, though somewhat in the category of nutty paranoid conspiracy thinking) is that somebody (but who?) decided the Mexican “War on (some) Drug (exporters) either is going too well before U.S. taxpayer funds can be plausibly spent on “Plan Merida” — or, that someone is looking at the economics of the narcotics export biz, and figured out that — good capitalists that they are — without competition in the industry, there will be a monopoly. Which certainly is not in the consumers’ interests.
I’m not certain the narcotics trade — if it is going to remain illegal (and it is) — isn’t better off being managed by organized criminals like the Arellano Félix brothers. Having recently opened an account at a bank that started out as a money laundry for the British opium trade of the 1850s, I’ve been wondering how many hands “dirty money” has to pass through before it is respectable again. As Honore de Balzac once wrote, “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
Irishmen! Listen to the words of your brothers…
Irishmen! Listen to the words of your brothers, hear the accents of Catholic people . . . Is religion no longer the strongest of human bonds? . . . Can you fight by the side of those who set fire to your temples in Boston and Philadelphia? Are Catholic Irishmen to be the destroyers of Catholic temples, the murderers of Catholic priests . . ? Come over to us; you will be received under the laws of that truly Christian hospitality and good faith which Irish guests are entitled to expect and obtain from a Catholic nation . . .May Mexicans and Irishmen, united by the sacred tie of religion and benevolence, form only one people.
(Capitán John Riley, Batallón de San Patricio)
Lá Féile Pádraig Shona Daoibh! (“A Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to all) from the Mex Files and “Trailero” at Mexican Trucker:
From behind the bullet-scarred walls of an ancient fortress, the wail of bagpipes and a thundering bass drum echoed through a plaza in the center of Mexico City.
Passers-by stopped in their tracks. Children craned for a look as a platoon of Mexican bagpipers marched through the gates in tribute to a strange and divisive chapter of Irish-American history.
The bagpipers play each month in honor of the St. Patrick Battalion, a group of 600 Irish-American soldiers who switched sides to fight for Mexico in the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War. Mexico lost half its territory to the United States as a result of the war.
To the United States, the deserters are traitors. But to Mexicans, the “Irish martyrs” are heroes, honored in street names, plaques and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations around the country. The battalion’s name is written in gold letters in the chamber of Mexico’s House of Representatives, and a ceremony is held in a Mexico City park every year to commemorate the executions of the group’s members.
(Entire article at Mexico Trucker ).
Incidentally, the IRISH NATIONAL GUARD also honors the San Patricios, every 16 September at his County Galway birthplace. Viva San Carlos has more on the San Patricios.
A touch of green for St. Patrick’s Day
Panamanian police arrested an Indian, Nicaraguan and Panamanian yesterday. They were the alleged recipients of 11.9 million dollar (yup… that $11,900,000 in greenbacks) found in the hold of a Liberian freighter while anchored in Manzanillo. Somebody’s ship didn’t come in.
The cash — destined to be laundered in Panama — was probably from narcotics sales in the United States and will be forfeited to the Mexican government. Too bad it wasn’t in Euros, but still a nice haul.
AND a note…
I may be tied up with moving this week and next. I have a few timely — but not time-sensitive — pieces set to post over the next week, for those who need a regular MexFiles fix.
NUDE GAY MEXICAN!
Geeze, maybe now that silly “Donkey Show” post won’t be my all time top hit!
Though forced to make compromise with their identity, two Mexican men left an indelible mark on Hollywood during the silent era.
Gilbert Roland (born Luis Antonio Damaso de Alonso in Cd. Juarez, in 1905) — the guy in the suit — originally intended to be a matador, like his father. Pancho Villa — in a sense, the third silent-era male lead from Mexico — of all people, closed the bullrings in Juarez … because he despised cruelty!
Luis Antonio’s family moved to Los Angeles, where — matadors not being an occupation with much future — had to find other work. Luis Antonio, starting as a boy extra in the films, enjoyed a long career stretching into the 1980s.
Despite changing his name to the more Anglo Gilbert Roland (taken from John Gilbert and Ruth Roland, two friends of his), there was no way not to “look Mexican”. Roland built a career as a “Latin lover” and later as a stereotyped Mexican (some say Roland, not Duncan Renaldo, was the definitive Cisco Kid). He did his best to live up to his reputation, not only writing (and publishing) romantic poetry, but having a series of romantic affairs …. with women. After a tempestuous affair with Norma Talmadge, he married Constance Bennett, divorced her in 1944, and finally settled down with a good Mexican wife. He lived to be 88, dying in 1994.
Ramon Novarro also had to change his name — according to legend, for the simple reason that a secretary had trouble typing his given name, Ramón Gil Samaniego … and because his agent figured that he needed a name that competed with Rudolf Valentino. In the silent era, Novarro enjoyed a wider range of roles than the usual “latin lover”. Besides his good looks, he had a great smile (he later admitted he rubbed his teeth with vasoline, but, then, Mexican are famous for their good teeth), was friendly with everyone (including the press) and comfortable with himself. Unusual for a silent film actor, Novarro was an athlete who took care of his physique. Several photos show Novarro working out at the gym, or competing in field and track events.
The son of a Durango dentist, Ramón Gil Samaniego was born in 1899. Like Roland, his family was displaced by the Revolution and ended up in Los Angeles, where the carefully educated Ramon had to work — or wanted to work — as a singing waiter and dancer. After some bit parts, Novarro’s breakthough was in Prisoner of Zenda, and then he became a mega-star in the 1925 MGM extravaganza, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
Maybe because it was a “pious” family-oriented film, director Fred Niblo and producer Louis B. Mayer could get away with a lot more than normal. The most expensive silent film ever made, it featured what some think is a better chariot race than the one in the 1958 version of the story. Meyer offered a 100 dollar prize to the winner of a real chariot race and Niblo kept the cameras rolling, even during a fatal accident. He also kept the cameras rolling during a ship’s battle scene when a real fire broke out, which made the panicked looks on the faces of “sailors” absolutely authentic. It was. The film took two years to make, during which time Novarro was paid $10,000 a week (the average salary in the United States in 1925 was about $1750… a year).
The 1925 Ben-Hur was a break-though in another way. As a galley-slave, Ramon Novarro became the first mainstream Hollywood actor to appear in the nude.
Mexican men are said — with some truth — to be uncomfortable with showing off their bodies, but then Ramon was not one for stereotypes. Well, maybe some stereotypes. Waiter, dancer, gym bunny… of course he was gay. He made no secret of it, though in the 1920s, sexual orientation was only mentioned in connection with scandal or criminality. And Ramon was a likable guy, popular with the press and his peers. However, with the advent of “talkies” which somewhat limited his acting range to parts where his Mexican accent would not be a handicap, a bigger issue was the “Hays Code” which meant Novarro — being “out” — was out. Not that it mattered much. He’d invested his Ben-Hur earnings wisely, and had enough to live comfortably. He continued to do some acting into the early 1930s (typecast as a “Latin lover”, or at least an exotic foreigner), and later a little television work, usually playing “Don so-and-so” in westerns.
Conscious that he was a Mexican, he was one of the first “Hollywood liberals” using his film and business connections to raise defense funds for the pachucos arrested during the 1943 “Zoot Suit Riots.” It was wartime, and when fights broke out between sailors in Los Angeles and Mexican and Mexican-American kids, the sailors were popularly considered innocent, the kids (many of whom were targeted when going out in “Zoot Suits” — the club clothes of the day), branded as “miscreants” by the patriotic press. In the 1960s, Novarro arranged financing for pioneering gay rights organizations and activities.
Unfortunately, like a lot of aging beauties, and well-heeled gay men in general, he was a target for hustlers. Believing Novarro kept cash at home, two punks tortured and beat the 68-year old star to death as they trashed his house on the night of 30 October 1968.
OK… I did say NUDE gay Mexican… relatively safe for work
Digging up old grievances (Cd. Juarez)
I’m not much worried about violence in Mexico, when it just involved gangsters offing each other. A well written article in the L.A. Times on the latest discovery of a gangster graveyard includes this observation:
“If you have a problem with a distributor or someone who’s selling the drugs, you don’t file a lawsuit against him. You just kill him,” said Jorge Chabat, a security expert at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City. “It’s a way of establishing discipline.”
What seems a little dubious to me is that these particular dead gangsters were buried about five years ago, long before the bally-hooed “War on (Some) Drug (Distributors)” got underway:
Organized crime’s violent reaction shows that the latest crackdown is working, experts say.
“I’m inclined to believe that they are sticking with a confrontational policy that leads to these kinds of gun battles and high-profile shootouts,” said Robert Donnelly, the coordinator of the Justice in Mexico Project at the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute. In contrast, experts said the 42 bodies unearthed at the two locations recently in Ciudad Juarez didn’t appear to be part of the recent campaign of retribution, but a clandestine, almost routine, effort on the part of drug traffickers to reprimand members in their ranks.
That was the “good old days” of Organized Crime. I can remember how shocking it was when one gangster’s “last supper” was a Big Mac and fries in the middle-class Mexico City colonia del Valle. The old Italian Mafia sometimes rubbed out inconvenient business associates at restaurants, but they usually had enough consideration for the soon-to-be departed to let him at least get a decent meal. And, it wasn’t that there were gangsters in Del Valle that shocked us. It was doing it in public. That was tacky.
Seasoned observers of Ciudad Juarez’s drug wars said the latest discovery had a decidedly old-school flavor, if only because the killers took the trouble to bury the bodies. Since the 1990s, drug enforcers have evolved from dumping bodies in shallow graves to hiding them in car trunks to wrapping them in blankets to simply leaving them where they drop, said Louie Gilot, who writes about border affairs for the El Paso Times.
“In the past they’d be somewhat discreet, but they’re getting bolder and bolder,” Gilot said. “Now they just kill them in front of people in broad daylight.”
Morons of the week…
March has certainly come in like a lion for “Buffalo” Rick Galeener. It’s been a rip-roarin’ month so far for the professional singing cowboy-turned-co-founder of Riders United for a Sovereign America, or Riders USA, a Phoenix-based immigrant-bashing motorcycle gang.
…
Galeener was cited by a Phoenix police officer for exposing his penis to a Hispanic woman and her 2-year-old son outside the Macehualli center.
As first reported in the Phoenix New Times, Galeener allegedly exposed himself to Paulita Cortes, a Phoenix resident who has lived near the work center for nine years. Cortes said that Galeener in the past has called her a wetback and told her to go back to Mexico.
After Cortes complained to police, Galeener was cited for indecent exposure, a class 1 misdemeanor, which carries a potential fine of $2,500 and is punishable by up to six months in jail. Galeener told the investigating officer that he was merely urinating in a plastic bottle.
“Ironically,” noted Phoenix New Times blogger Stephen Lemons, “there’s a McDonald’s about a block up the road….[but] he may not have wanted to use the McDonald’s, as it’s owned by … a vocal opponent of the protestersThe Mex Files › Create New Post — WordPress and a supporter of the work center.”
Jesus’ General has more on “Buffalo” Rick’s Easter Weekend Ride. Believe it or not, Buffalo Rick has a website (or, rather, a Cafe Press sales site) listed as “Buffalo Rick’s Pissed Off!”
Bad English, Ah-yup!:
What is that language these guys are speaking there in Rhode Island?
By the way, the customers mentioned in the report are U.S. citizens… but you wouldn’t expect Fox News to report a minor detail like that?
Calling Buffalo Rick
There’s a big ditch in the Arizona desert that’ll need fillin’:
There have been virtual fences, real fences, increased patrols and night-vision cameras. Now the latest initiative by the US to seal its increasingly porous border with Mexico harks back to one of the oldest approaches: dig a moat. City officials in Yuma, in south-western Arizona, have come up with a scheme to create a “security channel” along the nearby border by reviving a derelict two-mile stretch of the Colorado river.
“The moats that I’ve seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that’s kind of what we’re looking at here,” Yuma county sheriff Ralph Ogden told the Associated Press. The scheme would see engineers dig out a two-mile stretch of a 180-hectare (440-acre) wetland known as Hunters Hole.
The spin doesn’t stop here: Juan Camilo Mouriño
Felipe Calderón’s nomination of Juan Camilo Mouriño as Secretarío de Gobernacion, did more to restore the relevance of AMLO, and his “legitimate presidency” than anything recently. Largely frozen out of the media, and seemingly irrelevant, AMLO’s “alternative government” has seized on the questions surrounding Moreño’s appointment not just to attack Calderón administration policy, but to call into question that administration’s governance.
Calderón’s original Secretarío de Gobernacion, Francisco Ramírez Acuña, was a disaster. Already despised by many for his cavalier attitude towards human rights, the former Jalisco Governor was a throwback to the worst in PAN – with his background in the more reactionary movements with Catholicism – and widely assumed to be corrupt. During Calderón’s “War on (Some) Drug Dealers” Ramírez was nowhere to be seen – having the top law enforcement official in the country going AWOL during a supposed national emergency is not the image the Calderón Administration wanted to present.
J uanCamilo Mouriño is another typical PANista leader. His apelledo maternal is Terrazo: as with the Fox Administration, you see in the PAN cabinets a tendency to pick the heirs of the old Porfirian-era gentry – who seem, like the colonial Bourbon rulers, to “never forget and never learn.” While they don’t expect a return to the old hacienda system, they do have a tendency to equate family business with national business. Which is Juan Camilo’s problem.
One of his problems. Mouriño was born in Spain… which is no secret. However, with no Vice-President in the Mexican system, the Secretario de Gobernacion, is the de facto back-up President – and assumes the powers of the “Internal President” when the President is out of the country, or unable to perform his duties (the only time I can remember this happening, is when Vicente Fox had major back surgery during his tenure). If the President dies or resigns, the Secretario de Gobernacion is normally selected by Congress to fill out the Presidential term, or until the next Congressional Election. Whether the Secretario MUST be constitutionally qualified to be President is something I don’t quiet know. It appears so.
Mouriño has dual Spanish and Mexican citizenship. His mother was Mexican, and he claims he is Mexican. However, AMLO’s people uncovered evidence that Moreño had used his Spanish passport while traveling. Technically, that meant he’d claimed to be a Spaniard, not a Mexican. At least on the left, that was reason enough to attack Mouriño as a “gachupin” – a throwback to the colonial ruling class. Those charges were given respectable media coverage, but – coming from AMLO – were seen as querulous complaints by a “sore loser” by the more conservative (or more deferential to those in power) major media outlets like Televisa.
Evidence, again emanating from AMLO’s people, of Mouriño’s preferential treatment for family businesses during his tenure at PEMEX, are much harder to brush off. AMLO’s people have been arguing (and I tend to agree) that the Calderon and Fox administrations have been purposely mismanaging PEMEX – or at least continued in the PRI’s tradition of using PEMEX as an investment bank for party and party-favored investments. I don’t think it’s paranoia to assume the goal was to make the company ripe for takeover (by foreign multinationals – a return to Porfirian-era “liberalismo” under the rubric of “globalization.”
There’s an interesting cultural clash at work here. Mouriño claims he has done nothing wrong – that his family businesses which he favored while at PEMEX – might have not been the best bidder on various contracts, but was the best for the job. He seems to be following the Mexican (and Chinese and Indian) code of family loyalty in business dealings. AMLO, representing people without family connections, can afford to take the high ground, and push for the more modern concept of corporate and national ethics.
With AMLO’s PRD coalition pushing for a congressional investigation, and with AMLO gaining new legitimacy thanks to the controversy, Congress finally has agreed to an investigation… though, it is stacking the deck, freezing out PRD and their allies from the investigative committee. Manuel Roig-Franzia, of the Washington Post, is missing this background, but has “the rest of the story.”
MEXICO CITY, March 13 — The lower house of Mexico’s Congress launched a corruption investigation Thursday targeting the interior minister, a move that politically weakens the nation’s second most powerful official and imperils a major energy initiative.
A commission approved by the Chamber of Deputies will pore over allegations that Juan Camilo Mouriño, who has been interior minister for less than two months, helped his wealthy father secure government oil contracts.
The allegations date to 1997 and involve government contracts approved while Mouriño was a congressman and worked in the energy department. They are particularly sensitive because Mouriño is trying to persuade the Congress to approve controversial changes that would allow Mexico’s huge, government-run oil company to enter into development partnerships with foreign oil firms.
Indigenous immigrants
According to the Cherokee Nation of Mexico (an English-speaking people with “English” names) the Cherokee were originally a Central American people (or immigrants to the Americas), driven north by the Olmecs. Their homelands were the contemporary U.S. states of North Carolina and Georgia. Under pressure from the United States, Cherokee first began their emigration to Mexico in 1820. In 1822, Cherokee were granted the right of settlement in Texas and Coahuila. Threatened by Anglo settlement, many Texas Cherokee moved south of the Rio Grande/del Bravo after Texas gained independence, and even more after Texas was annexed by the United States.
The most famous Cherokee in history to come and live in the freedom of Coahuila, Mexico was Sequoyah. This world famous educator is the only person in human history to develop a written system of syllables, which enabled all Cherokees to be able to write their language proficiently after only two months of study. For this work of genius, the great Sequoyah was featured in every U.S. newspaper and most major world publications.
He was an U.S. Army veteran known, honored and loved in his time by the red and white man throughout the United States. To this day, U.S. national parks and giant redwood trees bear his name. For his achievements, he was given a house and a yearly monetary pension for the rest of his life in the military-controlled Indian territory, yet he loved and valued freedom so much that he urged all Cherokees to live as a free people in Coahuila, Mexico. Indeed, earlier (in 1836), Chief John Ross had been denied permission by the U.S. Secretary of War to be allowed to sell the Cherokee lands and move the entire tribe to Mexico. Much later, in 1895, the Western Cherokees would consider a vote to move to Mexico to whence Sequoyah had moved in 1842.
The Cherokee Nation, led by Chief Charles Jahtlohi Rogers M.D., was officially recognized by the Mexican Republic in 1992, and the State of Coahuila in 2001.
Although immigrants, of a sort, another indigenous Latin American community is also finally being recognized. This really has little to do with Mexico, though you’ll notice “indigenous” doesn’t always refer to “race” in Latin America:
mexfiles.net 
